Arrow Project newsletter

The Dutch Royal Library is collaborating with the IFRRO members Stichting Pictoright and Stichting Lira to launch a website aiming at making content from magazines dating from 1850 to 1940 available to the public (link: http://tijdschriften.kb.nl/).

On 23 January a large number of RRO representatives and ARROW Plus partners held a meeting to share the latest developments of the implementation of ARROW among RROs. The meeting was informed that ARROW is now up and running in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, while significant progress has been achieved in Belgium, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands. These steps forward were presented with a live demo of the system.

On the 22 January ARROW plus partners held a meeting to share the latest steps in the development of Books in Print services in European countries where they do not exist. The current release of the Books in Print software under development within the ARROW Plus project has been presented with a live demo of the functions available for publishers to feed the BIP with rich information on their book production and therefore reach their customers on the market in a timely and effective manner.

During the last quarter of 2012, ARROW appeared in 2 articles in the Italian press: DigItalia and the Corriere delle Comunicazioni, a magazine on digital economy and innovation. While the article in DigItalia refers to the ARROW Plus National Stakeholder Meeting in Rome in December, the article in the Corriere delle Comunicazioni explains the ARROW system and how it can be used to determine the status of a work.

In an article on copyright in the modern age and orphan works recently been published in the New Statesman magazine, Richard Mollet, Chief Executive of the UK Publishers Association, makes explicit and positive references to ARROW. Among other things, the article mentions the results of a British Library pilot on digitisation and making available copyright works, involving collective management and RROs in the UK, which used ARROW to facilitate the identification of rights, rights status, authors, publishers and licensing opportunities.

The report on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain permitted uses of orphan works, prepared by the rapporteur MEP Lidia Joanna Geringer de Oedenberg, has been adopted on 13 September 2012, by the European Parliament’s plenary (1st reading). MEPs debated the proposal, followed by a vote at noon.

The EP’s procedure file is available here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2011/0136(COD)&l=en

Europeana has recently announced that they have opened up their dataset of over 20 million cultural objects for free re-use. The dataset is the descriptive information about Europe’s digitised treasures and it will be released under the Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain Dedication, meaning that anyone can use the data for any purpose - creative, educational, commercial - with no restrictions. The release aims at providing a new boost to the digital economy.

Further information can be found here: http://e2.ma/message/btwec/365c1c

On 31 July 2012, Richard Hooper who is leading the feasibility study into a Digital Copyright Exchange published the Phase 2 final report: Copyright Works: streamlining licensing for the digital age. The report looks at how best to streamline copyright licensing in the UK with the intention of creating a cross-industry, interoperable Digital Copyright Exchange.

The Federation of European Publishers (FEP) recently contributed to the Danish Libraries’ Journal with an article on ARROW. The article describes briefly the rationale for libraries, authors, publishers and collective management organisations to work together and develop ARROW. It also updates on the state of play of the project after testing it.

You can read the article here (page 17): http://www.issuu.com/revy/docs/revy_4_-_2012_endelig_til_web

The 24th WIPO SCCR meeting focused inter alia on exceptions and limitations for education, libraries and archives. persons with print disabilities. At a well attended side event organised by IFRRO the IFRRO CEO Olav Stokkmo presented ARROW and offered a real time demonstration to WIPO Member States delegations and NGOs.

Further information on the event and the presentations given can be found here: http://www.ifrro.org/content/ifrro-reception-and-side-event-seamless-acc...